


Fear Cuts Deep

by cricket_aria



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Gen, Hair Washing, Hurt/Comfort, Rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-04-06 23:18:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19072714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cricket_aria/pseuds/cricket_aria
Summary: Loghain had thought he was facing a worthy death when he drew Nightmare after himself. But Nightmare wasn't letting it's last morsel of prey escape that easily.





	Fear Cuts Deep

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vulpineRaconteur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vulpineRaconteur/gifts).



When he’d put himself between Nightmare and its minions and the Inquisitor and her companions he’d thought he was making his last great stand. In death perhaps the other Wardens would stop treating his contributions to their cause as a dirty little secret to sweep under the carpet; he’d helped save many more of them than he’d once left to die at Ostagar, and after what they’d done those left could hardly claim that their sins were any less than his own. He would not go so far as to say he was content to die, so far from his home and with no chance to say goodbye to Anora, but it would have been a good enough death. Better than Maric had received, which was less than he deserved.

He’d been braced to die, ready for it, had striven only to put it off long enough for the others to escape. So it had been rather a surprise when after the rift had closed Nightmare had just slammed him to the ground with one massive leg, pressing with surprising care to keep him pinned without the limb's sharp end piercing his chest, and seemed almost to heave a sigh. “Well,” its voice rumbled in his mind, sounding as if it were attempting to hide the rage in its tone under a veneer of coolness but having little success, “I’ve been robbed of my chance at a great quantity of terror. I’ll need to mine yours for quality, Warden. I should thank you for not leaving me entirely fear-starved.”

Though dread filled him at its words, at the time he was fool enough to be glad that if it didn’t intend to kill him right away he might still find a chance to escape. It wouldn't be long before he realized just how preferable death would have been.

* * *

_He heard The Calling and he followed it, and he watched from somewhere within himself as he and the other Wardens committed horrors in the name of preventing future Blights, watched himself break every promise he’d ever made to himself since the Landsmeet to take his second chance at life and make himself someone better once more, watched himself become everything he most feared he might truly be deep at heart._

* * *

_All his attempts to prevent it had failed and Cailan had announced his engagement to Empress Celene, and that was bad enough before the boy proved himself worse than Loghain had ever feared and declared that his divorce would come at the end of a blade lest his former queen turn anyone who sympathized with her against him. Loghain was forced to watch in chains as Anora’s head was separated from her neck, while in the chapel behind him Cailan returned their country to enemy hands._

* * *

_He was a younger man once more, and when Maric set sail for Wycome he boarded at his side, and when the storm hit he saw his friend’s leg tangle in rope, dragging him down with the ship as it sank. Though he struggled to reach him he was pushed back again by heavy waves and tumbling rubble with almost every step. When he finally reached Maric it was only to find his bloated corpse just below the water._

* * *

_He was younger still and Rowan was staring at him with adoring eyes as blood dripped slowly down the knife in her hand, poured out of Maric’s throat where he had fallen in the mud, and she lovingly murmured “Now we can be together, beloved,” to him while his mind screamed that he had never, not once, wished to win her in such a way._

* * *

He was in The Fade, a demon’s voice battering against his mind, shrieking with rage “He is _mine_ , little elf, I’ve hardly begun to find the depths of all he’s feared!” and a figure blazing with blinding silver light, the brilliance of a Templar’s skill at annulment but lasting on and on, was dodging between massive legs, swinging a sword almost as large at it was at any creatures skittering in close to it, making its way inexorably closer to him.

Loghain let his eyes drift shut as hands too slender to seem like they could hold such strength wrapped around his arm and hoisted him to his feet. He had learned, in the rare moments when his endless waking nightmare pulled back enough for him to come a little to himself, that hope was one of the more terrible weapons at the demon’s disposal. A taste of it would only make the terror worse when it came.

* * *

“Poor Anora’s half-mad with worry,” a familiar voice was saying conversationally when he came to himself again. His body was prone and being jarred regularly, and after a moment he realized it was the feeling of being in a cart pulled along a rocky road. “It was finally enough to convince Alistair to let her know he had some idea how to contact me. Honestly, he was being a bit too considerate of my desire to be left to my search, I would have come back sooner if I’d known things had gotten so bad here.”

He cracked his eyes open, turning towards the voice. His eyes had trouble adjusting to the bright daylight after so long, but after a moment he could see enough to at least make out the brilliant red hair that he’d only ever seen in one family. “Kallian,” he said, his voice a dry croak. Strange, if Nightmare were to make a false vision of his rescue he would have expected it to be Anora who it made him see attempting it, and that he would have had to watch her fail and be trapped in the same endless cycle of nightmares.

“Loghain,” she said back, her tone light though as his eyes gained more focus he could see the worry in them as she looked at him, “this is twice now you owe me your life. The third, if you’d have been the one to die to the Archdemon without Morgain’s ritual, though I suppose she has the greater credit for that one. You’re lucky I’m not the type of woman to take advantage of that type of debt. Shianni would still rather I demand your sack as a coin purse for leaving Caladrius to his work; if she loved me any less I doubt she’d have forgiven me for letting you keep your head.”

“Yes, I still remember when she tried to put a knife in me during the victory celebrations,” he managed, voice coming a little more easily when she dribbled a stream of overly-warm water between his lips. He’d have expected it to be cold and clear and turn to acid as it dribbled down his throat.

“Yes, that would be my girl,” she said with a easy smile that still didn’t reach her troubled eyes, “She still bickers with me from time to time over letting you live, though if anyone asks I will thank you not to let anyone know that she and the rest of my family have had any more chance than anyone else of seeing me over the last several years. They’ll never be left in peace if people thought they could use them to get messages to me.” Then she stretched out a foot and tapped him on the ankle with her toes, “But enough talk about family troubles. Now that you’ve had some water try to go back to sleep, it’s still a long stretch of desert before the next city and in your state you’ll be better sleeping away the sun. We should be thankful I was able to rent a dracolisk trained to know its way home, at least we should make it back swiftly enough without being muddled by the dunes.”

He should not trust her enough to fall asleep, but he felt so weak that he couldn’t resist for long once he no longer had her conversation to keep him awake.

* * *

The rest of the journey passed for him in fits and starts. She’d wake him long enough to dribble water down his throat, once and twice a bit of thin broth as well, then go silent until he fell asleep again. It made time seem to pass as fuzzily as it ever had in the Fade, though the more time went on without the other shoe dropping the more he started to hope that maybe it truly wouldn’t this time. 

Nightmare had not been a patient beast after it’s prey had been narrowed down from an entire order to a single man. It would build a scenario just long enough to snag his mind before snapping whatever trap was within it shut, pulling out its meal. More than that, it had not allowed enough awareness of what was going on to seep in for him to realize what was happening. It was only in brief snatches between visions that he became aware of the demon and what it was doing again, before becoming entirely lost in whatever horror it spun for him next

So where at first he might have let himself remain dead weight when they reached town at last, not offering any help as he was drawn towards whatever was waiting even if he was too weak to actively fight against it, when the time actually came he did try to stumble along at least partially under his own power once she got her shoulder beneath him. It was little better than if he had been dead weight.

He found himself left on the floor of the room she dragged him into before she left him to speak with someone. He drifted again as he waited, too weak still to drag himself up onto the bed, and was unsure of how much time actually passed before the door opened and she stepped in carrying a large steaming pitcher, another elf following behind with a deep bowl that kept sloshing water slightly over the rim. “Forgive me for leaving you there,” she said as she took a seat at the end of his head and nodded for the boy to set the bowl beside her and leave them, “but you, Ser, are in terrible need of some washing up, there are no baths even if you could hold yourself up in one, and I’d really rather not slosh water on the bed.” She gently lifted his head and pulled the bowl over to lay it back into it. “Really, I should slice off your hair so I could use less water on it, this was the absolute limit they would give me and it won't go far, but I’m not that cruel.”

Her fingers carded through his hair, hands he’d seen slice multitudes of darkspawn apart in the past now gentle, so gentle, as she worked out the filth and tangles of however many weeks he’d been trapped in the Fade. “I would have understood had you chosen to shave me bald,” he told her as she dipped a cloth into the still-clean water in her pitcher, beginning to carefully wipe off his face and neck as well. “I would hardly have expected you to clean me.”

“Please, I think we’ve known each other long enough by now that we can handle an awkward sponge-bath or two,” she told him. “I promise I have no intention of slitting your throat while you’re vulnerable, I daresay you’re the one who’d have been more likely to do that to me back in the day at any rate.”

“I doubt that you would have allowed me close enough.” She pulled the bowl out from under his head, wrapping his hair in a soft cloth that he suspected was one of her shirts, and shifted around to his side. Before he could even realize what her intentions were she’d slipped her hand up beneath his shirt, hooking a knife through the neck hole and slicing straight down.

“Don’t fret too much,” she said as he sputtered, "your clothing is a complete loss and I’ve already asked the innkeeper to find something that should fit you.” She scrubbed at his arms and chest, and he had to admit that as the sweat and muck was sloughed away it felt almost as his skin was being set free. After everything he’d just been through it was too easy to allow himself to be soothed at last at the hands of perhaps the only person he’d trust to guard his back if something burst through the peace. 

If it were a trap it was the most subtle one yet, but he would allow it to capture him. Letting the peace, however brief, into his mind might be all that could save him from going entirely mad. He was so caught up in it that he made no complaint when she took her knife out again, this time slicing through his slacks and smallclothes.

“There’s not a wound on you,” she said as she continued to wash, skirting more awkward bits for the time being to focus on his legs. “I know Nightmare's focus was more on your mind, but I would hardly have expected it to bother allowing you to heal, and from what I heard of the fight you were left in I can’t believe you were entirely uninjured.”

“It wanted me to last,” he said bitterly. “It was a clever enough beast to realize it might not lure in more prey for a very long time, and wanted to make sure I wouldn’t die until it had wrung every last drop of fear from me that it could.”

“I see,” she said, thoughtfully, and her hand scrubbed gently upward, her eyes on his face soft and considering. “I think you’ve suffered more than even those who hate you most would say you deserve now, Loghain. I can’t do much to help with that, but I can at least try to distract you from it for a time.” 

The cloth in her hand swiped finally over his cock, her other hand following behind once it was swiped clean to wrap around him with a steady grip. Her eyes never left his face.

“I would not ask you to prostitute yourself to my pain, Kallian,” he chocked out, even as he could feel himself growing hard beneath her hand. Weak as he was he didn't even know how that treacherous part of himself even found the strength to rise.

She smiled suddenly, as if his answer pleased her, and leaned in to kiss him gently, almost chaste but for her tongue gently flicking against his lips just as she pulled away. “I wouldn’t offer if I were unwilling, Loghain. I’ve known you better as my companion than I ever did as my enemy, and you’ve long since made up for all your crimes against me. We can pass a pleasant time together before we go our separate ways again.”

“I wouldn’t want you to be disowned by your cousin for my sake,” he said, but didn’t fight against her teasing hand.

“Would you like this to last long enough for Shianni to even have a chance to find out?” she asked with a laugh. “That would be another conversation entirely, once you’re better.” She slide a leg over him, and he hadn’t even realized that she was wearing nothing beneath the loose skirt she was wearing to fight the desert heat until she slid down on him, wet enough to take him from nothing more than having washed his body, which he thought was answer enough to whether she was only doing this out of pity or truly wanted to. “I can’t say I’d be entirely against it, though.”

And, even if only for a short time, the nightmares finally fled his mind entirely as she started to move.


End file.
